D is for Donation - Chris - Wild West

Part two of the recent Wild West donations, this lot courtesy of Chris Smith, and we've a few interesting things to look at, starting with a real find, especially so when you consider how much help Chris has already given on the subject of pencil-sharpeners, both of the Hong Kong based KT, and related West German examples.

 

Aren't they fascinating? Almost mint plastic, but a lot of damage, reflecting their age (probably 1960's, or even 1950's) and material, which is a frangible polystyrene. But we have enough (lower right shot), to get a good idea of them including both arms, which were originally glued on.

 

The cowboys bodies had a weight attached to the end of the unfortunately positioned rod, which kept them attached to the horse (lower left shot, excuse the dirty nail), but swinging back and forth, as they mossied over the range!

 

Two colours of horse, up to six colours of rider parts and/or sharpeners, with grey-green mounting brackets and pink heads, this is an incredible find, a lovely gift and possibly best in parcel. I was so busy sorting and bagging everything I didn't really give thought to 'best in parcel', so there may be more, we're only a third of the way through these posts!

 

Another sample of the figures Brain ID'd as being from 1950/60's Lucky Bags, and amazingly, given how many I have now, there are new colours and poses in this lot, and a complete version of a figure we've previously only seen damaged, so a sample which continues to grow, but shows no signs of being the definitive one yet - I think we're over 30 poses, so far!

 

I was only waxing lyrical about the Texas Indian in silver the other day, and a yellow one turns up! I'm beginning to suspect there was only one each on the mounted, and I may have a cowboy somewhere, in red?

 

The green semi-flat Indian is quite a surprise, I've had loads of these come in over the years, they've been blogged here, and I sort of assume they were a replacement for the brittle ones above in Lucky Bags, but every one I've encountered, has been red, we may even have looked at different shades of red, now green one turns up? Raising the possibility of other colours . . . yellow, blue? Lovely find Chris! [Later - I did have a single yellow one! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/10/u-is-for-unknown-wild-west-flats-3.html]

 

Another Culpitt late type, a damaged Minimodels, those rifle tips are often missing, but the cowboys survive better than the Indians, who are almost always weaponless! The dark green chap is another of the 40mm backwoodsmen who turn-up, out of Hong Kong, and the larger lady is a rather nice, undamaged piece of poured resin, from the tourist trade, I suspect.

 

Atlantic canoe from the Davy Crockett set, I have very little Atlantic in the large scale, as I had it all in the small scale, before the Blog extended the remit of the collection! The other is probably a sports boat from a roof rack or infant-toy play set, marked 1979 Buddy L Corp.

 

Coach and wagon oddments, include three of the teeny ones from mini tree-crackers, a larger 'W.Germany' one missing its horse (orange) and the horse from another (pastel blue), missing its coach, which might be German or from Hong Kong!

 

In the middle is one of those Japanese novelties in Celluloid, missing it's wheels, but all these things have their own place, and bits or parts make wholes, while multiples make better samples, even if they're incomplete!

 

Two 1st version Cherilea 54mm swoppets will make useful spares too, and the red torso may be another, or he may be a Kinder/Italian type, novelty figure part?

 

Being a consummate collector in his own right, and having sent dozens of these parcels to the Blog now, Chris knows to keep the cleaner samples of these many, many, Giant knock-offs separate, so the bag has what looks like a mix of two semi-identified (by me) types, so all I'll have to do is swap a few riders back onto the correct 'other' horse.

 

While the loose stuff is the ones-and-twos, which come in with every mixed lot, and will require more effort/diligence in sorting, but you can see the cracker types in both sizes (mini and 'Lone Star' pirates), a Blue Box wagon horse and other treats.

 

Similar material here, with a possible post-Giant gun team in the four, but it could equally be a wagon (probably the red/green ones) team, while the pair of 'Large Standing' are from the Cracker and other Giant gun copies (sans limbers, the gun is pulled direct!), and the two farm carts were also Cracker prizes I think, I have yet to find them on cards?

 

Finishing this section with a huge tee-pee, I suspect it's from 3- or 4-inch action figures, but it's not much larger than the Britains one, and has some similarities in construction, assuming some poles are missing? But what's particularly interesting is the material, which is a sort of compressed version of the faux-chamois leather, used to dry-off cars when valeting them! But retaining a softness, those 'leathers' don't, but they are soft when you first buy them, and it's the constant wetting and drying which renders them so stiff I think. A very unusual thing, and many thanks again to Chris for all of this.

D is for Donation - Peter - Wild West

Yee-haw pardners! It's the Wild West today, and again leading with Peter's stuff, some of which dates back to last autumn, and there are a few items of interest, so let's get stuck in;

An eclectic little bunch, with three relatively contemporary, and still findable in rack toys, Airfix Indian copies of the third or fourth generation, but cheerful enough, a Deetail original who needs a bit of hot-water treatment (and Deetail Wild West is an absence in my collection, no more than a handful!), the grey chap was Boley in the 'States and others elsewhere (Ackerman?), and is a sub-scale copy of an Airfix cowboy.

 

I think we had a wagon from this bunch, or possibly an Indian set, here marked-up to PMS, somewhat Britains Deetail in styling, and somewhat Supreme/SP in execution, and while the foot figures ARE Supreme copies, these - the mounted only, are, I think, all new sculpts? I'll have to check!

 

There was a recent debate about the chap on the left in Plastic Warrior magazine (issue 202 out now - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts), so suffice to say I think this is the UK version of a figure also seen out of Hong Kong, he should have a rifle through that loop and, I suspect, other accessories?

 

On the right, a common enough copy of Jean, from the 1980's/1990's, we looked at them briefly a while ago, there are several generations/issuers of these, from Hong Kong, and we'll return to them one day for a better overview.

 

I suspect the bulk of these are those flesh-coloured kits, as supplied to the 'States and pointed out to me in a past post on Elastolin stuff, when Ross Mac remembered they were sold from Henry Bodenstedt's shop in New England in the 1960's, the bases being uniform/flat yellow. The prone guy might be factory-finished, but I don't think so.

 

The mounted figure who came with them, another home-paint I think.

 

Picked-up the other day, the dobbin on the left is Cherilea I think, but missing a tail, and I'm not sure if the rider belongs on him, Wild West is a bit of a weakness with me, playing catch-up with the large scale since 2009, I've not paid enough attention to the West, and there's a hell of a lot of production, in all scales from many manufacturers!

 

A Tudor Rose late production figure in polyethylene, and a nice horse, probably from a French or 'W. Germany' novelty or premium wagon, or coach, and a lady who's lost her hands, see looks like she may be from a Christmas village, but has a huge lump of glue on her base, and might be from a music-box or something, but I'd rather have her in the stash, as a sample, than not know I didn't have her, if you know what I mean . . . oh my god, what else am I missing?! 

 

Culpitt's 2nd generation, I'm beginning to suspect the integral based eight, were not from the same source as the plug-ins also carried by Injectapalstic-JSP-AHM etc . . . but were commissioned by Culpitt, to undercut whoever they were getting the earlier ones from? Something Culpitt had a history of, doing the dirty on George Musgrave over at Gemodels, with his cake decorations.

 

Thanks to Peter Evans for all these, foot for thought, gaps filled and some nice ACW!

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There's still a couple of Sandown related things in the queue, but they may join the many folders down the bottom (of Picasa!) which date back to up to fifteen years ago, it will get posted one day . . . it will! In the meantime, here's the sci-fi and fantasy element of my busy scurrying and ferreting, back in February!

 

Gareth found these and brought them to my attention, he managed to get another, 14th pose, but I've already got a reasonable sample of these, and we have seen them here before, painted, and as unpainted late production, including whacky plastic colours (fluorescent pink, green and oranges), as well as visits to bagged and loose Thunderbird additions to the range, in soft rubber and polystyrene, so I've probably got the missing pose?

 

Ovni (UFO) from Comansi, I don't know if these are factory painted, or home-paints, the seller and Gareth thought the latter, and when painted, they tend to have brown bases, so these are probably not 'official'. But, they were sold under various guises, as well as the UFO moniker, and the late Thunderbirds sets, they came as Battle of the Planets and as The Invaders TV series tie-ins, so they may have ended up looking like this at one point - the seller had quite a few, all in the same condition.

 

The fact that some faces are painted, others not, is also odd, a home-painter would do them all the same, a team of out-painter's wouldn't be so fussy? The real interest, to me, is in the plastic colours underneath, mid-green and metallic blue, which I think are earlier than my previous samples, making the whole sample, a better representation of Comansi's output.

 

A few minutes after publishing - In fact I think there's more than twenty poses in total, with the six Thunderbirds characters, maybe closer to thirty, we've seen a girl, a chap holding a space rifle parallel to the ground, a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster type, I think there's another kneeling one I don't have, a guy waving a space rifle, a guy holding an equipment box (which gives us 20/26), so when I've got my four or more samples together, we'll have a proper looks at them despite having had several 'proper' looks at them already! Doh!

 

Game playing pieces I suspect, and in the style of all that MB Games' stuff licensed from the Nottingham Mafia (Battle Masters, Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk et al), but I'm in the dark as to which game these are from, and it's only the bases of the blue figures which are leading me in the GW direction? 

 

A blow-moulded astron . . . sorry, cosmonaut from the former Soviet Union, and while I'm not posting Russian stuff at the moment, this can be lost in amongst the other stuff. Not believed to be a parachute toy, but more of an infant's garden/beach/bath toy thing, a big chunk for tiny hands.

 

 "Wrestlers sah! Millions of 'em!"

 

Mattel's M.U.S.C.L.E., always nice to add a few more to the tub, especially these - mostly - coloured ones, when I first started finding these, they were usually the flesh-coloured chaps, and early web-pages would suggest the colours were rarer, but I think they were just later, so came to market later, and therefore come onto the secondary market later, too, they seem to turn-up quite often these days, but a nice sample, with a pocket monster to the fore.

 

The sublime and the ridiculous! Cherilea and Matchbox, although I'm being unfair, the Matchbox K-2002 Flight Hunter was a reasonable effort as the long-night of the long-knives in the toy industry of the early 1980's, bit deep. While I got the elusive space-slug, because he was affordable, due to his short-shot foot, I doubt he misses it!

 

Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Military

Military and ceremonial now, with a few interesting items, one of which is annoying me, but maybe you know what it is, or where they are from, but let's look at the pièce de résistance first!

 

A pretty clean Kentoy stretcher team, I may already have one, but this has good paint, and being new to market is properly 'clean' if you know what I mean, and I think it's a darker brown blanket than my existing sample.

 

I think these may both be duplicates, but I love a bit of [affordable] composition, and we have an 'olin' gunner from Germany, possibly a minor make, or from the budget ranges of one of the big-two, the other, more likely the duplication; it looks familiar, in pumice or plaster, and maybe British or French?

 

This pair are the ones that are bugging me, I'm sure I've seen chapter & verse on them, possibly in one of the glossy mags', but I can't recall, and/or didn't take notes, but equally, it might be on the dongles as an internet download? Poured resin, with wire armatures in the trumpets, I have a feeling they are scenic background for a poured-metal or 'new metal' solid set, from someone like King & Country, Figarti or Frountline?

 

Again, I can't resist a bit of litho-printed tin, when it's affordable, and these were on Steve Vicker's table, I actually picked the six better ones, but he sent the two casualties over, a few minutes later, via a mutual friend who was passing, and, to be honest, the red-coat could replace one of the Germans, if only for a future photograph.

 

From the left we have - I assume - a khaki Brit, two Germans, with possibly an Italian between them, and a couple of Russo-Japanese war types? On the ground are both Brit's I think, and all late 19th/early 20th century, in depiction, beween the two wars, in execution? 

 

Odds - A Timpo horse, which may have started life pulling a wagon or gun, but which has been married to a mounted figure's base, and a Britains Herald Highland officer. All play-worn, but useful spares or 'grist -to-the-mill'!

 

Crescent, with two of the darker-red plastic, behind, and a sand-textured one in front.

 

Not the best (signs of repainting), but a useful comparison shot between two similar poses from Lone Star (black bases) and Britains Herald (green bases), At Ease (left), and Royal Salute (Present Arms), on the right.

 

Cherilea - Highland pipers.

 

I don't think these are repaints, I think this is how Lone Star issued them, with simple, all green kilts, I also think they were on the wants list? So, a useful addition to the massed ranks of the Highland samples.

 

Paints quite good, on these Harald Lifeguards, but sticky fingers have reduced them to 'dirty', so someone had full play-value out of them! Having recently seen Argentinian (?) ceremonials in similar uniforms, they may get a strip and repaint with paler (than the Horse Guards) blue jackets, or something equally exotic from one of the Blandford books?

 

Odds & sods! There's a Skybirds rangefinder (for which the operator has been waiting several decades! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/s-is-for-skybirds.html), and pilot torso in the left foreground, and various useful 50 and 60-mil fellows from Cherilea, Crescent, Hilco and Britains.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Wild West

We've been slowly getting through the Sandown Park stuff, for a while now, on-and-of, and I've just spent 20-minutes sorting a folder only to realise it was the BMSS purchases, when it makes sense to finish-off the Sandown bits, given what else in now in the short queue, and how far I've slipped already this year, so I quickly hived these off, technically Wild West, but there's a duck and three Spaniards in here!

 

Timpo Teepee, which was going cheap, and I grabbed at the end of the show, I've got a better sample in storage, but there are a couple of Tipi posts full of Wigwams in the queue, so I thought it would be useful for enhancing those!

 

I got in a muddle at last year's Plastic Warrior show, (next one, just over a month away!), and consequently missed out on a couple of the Mohicans I need, but in the aftermath correspondence, at least worked out I need the archer, and the guy with rifle and tomahawk, but I knew I also needed a 'better paint' shooter, than the one I had, so this chap on the right ticks a box nicely!

 

These two were in a biscuit tin of proper 'new to market' stuff Isaac offered me, and he didn't want much for it, in fact he may have been trying to give it to me, but I got very excited by the 'jumper' alien (we've already seen) and then spotted these two, told him they were worth 'proper money', and gave him said dosh. The rest was mostly grist-to-the-mill wild west (most of the below) and ceremonial types.

 

Hong Kong Confederate, half Crescent inspired (horse), half Timpo solids, issued here in small, generic rack-toys, but in the 'States in Ideal play sets I seem to recall?

 

Cherilea 60mm 5th Cavalry, the 'Black Knights', busied themselves with the genocide of the locals between the Missouri River and California (which "...was an almost unknown territory, occupied by powerful and warlike tribes"), sorry, sorry, upsetting the guilty again . . . 'Delivering civilisation', is - I believe - how Congress put it? Trump and Netanyahu are doing it in the Middle East, now!

 

Strangely these must have sold well, back in the day, as they often appear in mixed lots, and between odd purchases, these (the bag is all standing firers!) and a semi-brittle bunch a few years ago, I should have a complete set now.

 

An errant Spaniard (Hilco-Phoenix-et al), a Disney Mc-duck ('Euro' premium or Marx reissue?) and two Crescent 60mm's, one, a confederate in average condition, and the other, a rather poor cowboy!

 

A Tudor Rose rider, and two US figures, who might have been licensed over here, they seem quite common, and Tudor Rose might be in the frame for that contract, but I don't know, they may be later imports, they're not rare, and ran for years - I think in the USA they are Lido?

 

A mixed lot of odds, including two tatty Herald cowboys and a camp fire, an 'Early British' (Kentoys?) copy, a Herald Hong Kong shooter in good nick, damaged Cherilea mountie, and a Cherilea Indian on his back, also injured!

 

Crescent Wild West, the guy with the whip (slave owner? Never made sense to me!) is probably the best here, but both white ones need cleaning, and checking against the master sample. In point of fact, all three to the left are saveable.

 

Cherila 60mm, again it's a case of checking them against the master sample, sending the damaged ones to recycling, and either swapping the rest at some point in the future, or selling them to fund further purchases!

 

As one Spaniard had already snuck-in, these two can go here as a full-stop, two reissue Cherilea bullfighters, from the Marlborough-Dorset production era.

O is for Oops!

One of those slightly admissive parables today, most of us have been there once or twice, making a mistake, whether because there's one born every minute, or because we were all born one, and of course, these things happen, in the pressed time of a toy fair, or under poor 'village hall' lighting, or, in the case of evilBay lots, because scale or background are unfamiliar, or colours skewed by lighting or flash, but, this was one of my recent boo-boos, which, as it was not inexpensive, I was lucky to escape a few hours later, with nowt but my pride dented!

 

I saw these Cherilea dancers in the poor light of a winter morning at the February Sandown Park pre-show car-booty rummage, on the terraces of the main stand, and thinking they were the plastic ones, asked the seller what he wanted for them, a price was floated, which I'm not disclosing, but suffice to say it was in three figures, and I thought "Well, the whole point of coming to a show is to find a couple of stand-out or rare pieces, so; what the hell?", handed over the required shekels, and reached for them, only to realise, instantly, from the weight, that they were the lead ones!

 

But the seller was already busy with another punter, and the argument (about shows and rarities) remained valid, so I thought "What the hell?" (again!) and slid them in my jacket pocket. Adrian thought I'd done OK when I showed them to him, and he knows more about the lead stuff, than I do, but he thought it was 'all the money', so a profit was never going to be in there!

 

Interestingly, though, they are not the same sculpts as the Harbuts set, we saw a while ago (https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/06/b-is-for-best-show-on-earth-11.html), and which I had mentioned at the time, but nice to have them in front of me, if you know what I mean!

 

Fortunately, a well known metal dealer, who can remain nameless, came round while I was holding the fort for Ade' and chatting with one of the Paul's, and in conversation, because we're happy to admit our errors among friends, I explained the over-exuberant nature of my commercial faux-pas, and he offered to give me what I'd paid for them!

 

So in the end, I got four nice images of some pretty rare figures, in even rarer packaging, and it didn't cost me anything, beyond that bit of dented pride . . . Phew! . . . Doh!